“A Game of Skill, Luck and Passion” – Interview with Poker Star Brian Rast

Brian at the WPT Alpha8 in ’14 – Image source: Flickr

Brian Rast is an American professional poker player from Las Vegas. Not only is he one of two players to have won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship twice, but also the winner of five World Series of Poker bracelets. In this exclusive interview, we talked to Brian hoping to learn more about the passion, aims, and even regrets of poker stars. Could we do it? Read the following interview to find it out yourself!

How Did You Decide to Become a Professional Poker Player?

As a kid, I always loved playing games. I played different kinds of video games and some card games with my friends. However, of all the varieties I liked strategies. For example, the game that I got good at before I started playing poker was Counter-Strike – it’s a first-person shooter video game. However, beyond just playing I was the person who was telling out the strategy for the team matches.

Instead of taking my freshman year in school seriously, I put more attention to gaming. A few years later, it was my third year in college when a buddy of mine started a poker club. I went over there and started playing. Indeed, I immediately noticed that poker is a very deep strategy game and it is better than all other games I have been playing. So, you know, I kind of got hooked from the beginning.

Do You Play Poker Online? 

I rarely play online nowadays. When I started in my early 20s, I probably played a little more online than I played live. I have always done both for a very long time. However, in the USA, there’s this thing in the poker community called “Black Friday” when the government went after all the big online gambling sites that were operating in legally gray areas.

 

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It almost put an end to Internet casinos in the country. Now I still have accounts that I can use to play online when I travel. But since I don’t do it very often, at this point, I just enjoy playing live.

What is the Fundamental Difference Between Online and Offline Poker?

For me, offline poker is a richer game. While you are playing, you’re sitting at the table with other human beings who are not robots and are going to feel and express various emotions. They might get distracted or bored. And there are just a bunch of other things that can happen from which you can get more information and make better decisions. However, online poker also has its pros. For example, you can play multiple tables and the hands go a lot faster. Therefore, if you are good at multi-tabling, you can earn more online than live.

Can Online Poker Imitate the Thrill and Feeling of Satisfaction of Playing Poker Offline?

I’d say for the most part, yes. In the sense of day-to-day playing a cash game – sure! But I don’t think anything is ever going to be able to imitate the feeling of making high stakes at the final table where you have cameras and an audience watching you because there are a lot of physical things that are going into that.

Thus, even if you have a tournament online, you’re not going to feel the same. However, now, I guess online is getting more and more like that, especially with Twitch and all other platforms where people are watching online events. I think online mostly imitates and maybe is getting closer, but there’s a difference in experiences of live games.

What is Your Biggest Win Ever?

My biggest win was at the Super High Roller Bowl 2015. I won seven and a half million, so it was a $7 million profit. Although I didn’t have it all myself, that was my biggest total win. 

What is More in Poker: Skills or Luck?

Well, that’s going to depend on the timeframe that you’re looking at. If you’re looking at playing only one hand, then luck is going to be the most important thing. If someone has aces and you’ve got seven-deuce offsuit, you are more likely to lose. However, as the number of hands increases, it’s almost like a scale that shifts the other way. Thus, over a large enough sample size, skills become more important.

For example, your hand reading abilities, your ability to classify your opponent, how well you’re able to emulate GTO or to exploit your opponent, etc. But on any given night, even a bad player can win in a game where he’s expected to lose. I think that this is a massive feature of poker. If you want a game where the best player always wins, go play chess. Poker is a game of skill and luck where everything can happen. 

Is it Possible to Learn a Pocket Strategy or is It All Just Personal Experience?

It also depends on time. I mean there has always been poker strategy stuff available. But when I started playing poker 20 years ago, it was very rudimentary and simple. Basically, at some point, once you got good at the game, it was all about personal experience. Now more and more advanced training appears like videos and courses from professional poker players. And then obviously, some more complicated solvers can show players GTO solutions.

It’s hard for a beginner to use a modern solver and extrapolate good information from it. But once you’re good enough to do that, you can learn poker strategy at the highest level, which is, in my opinion, part of the reason why some of the top no-limit Hold’em players have made more gains in the past five years than we’ve ever seen. And these guys are playing well today. Well, it is all because there are plenty of good tools to study game theory now.

Do You Immediately Determine the Level of Professionalism by the Style of Your Opponent’s Game?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s always a bunch of clues that can tip this off. It’s a bit of Bayesian analysis when you don’t know something, but you’re getting small bits of information to push your hypothesis in a certain direction. So you’ll watch hands and maybe you don’t even get to see the cards, but you’ll see the way the person is betting and how much, the way one acts and talks to other players, you know, things they say. For example, at the WSOP Main Event, you’re sitting down with eight or nine random people.

And especially if you get to move tables, you can’t even look them up online. Thus, when you’re playing, one of the best things to do right away is watch the hands and try to classify everybody: Where is this player on his poker journey? Is he a raw amateur? Does he have some level of experience or bliss? What type of game does he have? And the truth is that I’ve found pretty often that within an hour at the poker table, I can usually have a pretty good bead on a number of the players at the table. The more hands you play, the more information you gather.

What Would You Change if You Could in Your Poker Career? Are There Any Big Mistakes That You Regret Badly?

I think “regret” is a tough word. There are very few things in my life that I regret. I feel like I’m pretty happy with where I am. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve done things that I wish I had done differently. Most of those things, I choose to view more as my opportunity to learn from and become better. It’s all a learning experience. And it is what got me to where I am here today, even if I would go back and change something a little bit.

And if Someone Wants to Make a Career Out of Poker, What Will Be Your Main Advice to This Person?

Well, poker is seductive because it looks like an easy way to make money. But the truth is that poker is a really hard way to make an easy living. And you should never get into poker unless you’re passionate about it. If it just seems like a good way to make some money, but you don’t love playing poker, then you definitely shouldn’t do it. Otherwise, do it as a recreational activity. For example, I’ve been asked if I want to teach poker to my son. And my answer to that is always ambiguous.

 

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I mean, if my son comes to me and says that he loves poker and wants to excel in the game, then I would be like Master Yoda and guide him. But I would never suggest it or make my son do it. But that being said, poker is a beautiful game, where you get to compete, use math, and read people. Indeed, all of these are great things. And there are so many positive aspects to it as far as the game goes. So yeah, I would encourage people to try playing and to do it responsibly. As far as making a career out of it, I would just be very careful, so you’re not getting into it for the wrong reasons.

Finally, What Does the Future Hold For You? Are We Going to See You Soon in Any Upcoming Poker Tournaments?

Well, you never know, right? But I’m probably going to be doing the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series commentary. And I will keep playing the World Series of Poker, which I would consider my main thing right now. I still play some mixed cash games in Vegas, which isn’t something you can follow me doing. And as for the no-limit tournaments, I’ll play some that come in and out of Vegas because I probably won’t travel too much for them.

I still have success in a lot of no-limit tournaments even if I’m not playing the biggest high rollers consistently anymore. Hopefully, I’m gonna make the Poker Hall of Fame next year since I am one of the nominees – it will be a cool little accomplishment! You know, I’m going to play poker for the rest of my life. And I’m never going to quit, even if I don’t play quite as much as when I was in my 20s. But yeah, I love it.

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